Tater Trot Tracker

Trot Times for September 6

Labor Day is now over, leaving us in the home stretch for the season. In only three more weeks, we'll be celebrating postseason baseball again. I can't wait. I imagine most teams are feeling the same way right now - after all, that whole "white after Labor Day" thing has to be tough for most teams this time of year.

Let's get to the trots!

Home Run of the Day: Francisco Cervelli, New York Yankees - 20.95 seconds [video]
Colorado's Troy Tulowitzki and Chicago Bryan LaHair each had late-inning, game-tying home runs on Tuesday and could easily have the Home Run of the Day. Cervelli gets the call, though, for hitting a home run that was interfered with by fans but still upheld via replay. If you watch the video, it's clear that the Yankees fans in the front row reach well over the fence in an effort to catch the ball before dropping it onto the field. The play was reviewed by the umpires and upheld. They either felt there wasn't enough evidence to overturn the initial ruling or they felt the ball would have cleared the fence even without the interference. The latter seems very unlikely. Home run boundary calls are the prime reason for replay in baseball today; it sure would be nice if there was at least one good camera angle on the wall for just such occasions, not just lousy angles from hundreds of feet away.

It should also be noted that, for the second time this week, someone hit a home run in his first career at-bat. This time it was San Francisco Giant Brett Pill, who blasted a ball off the brick wall in Petco last night. He is the first Giant since Will Clark to hit a home run in his first career at-bat.

Slowest Trot: Ryan Doumit, Pittsburgh Pirates - 24.83 seconds [video]
It's hard to fault Doumit here. He's not all that fast of a man to begin with and, really, 24.83 seconds isn't all that slow for a "Slowest Trot." It was still nearly a full second slower than the next slowest trot, though: a 23.92 second trot from Matt Wieters.

Quickest Trot: David Murphy, Texas Rangers - 16.61 seconds [video]
On the other hand, it could have just been a really quick day. There were three different trots in the 18-second range, but those all seem slow compared to David Murphy. Murphy's home run squeaked over the edge of the rightfield fence, but fell back onto the field of play. Murphy was taking no chances, running as hard as he could in case the ball was still live. In the end, he left us with a blistering 16.61 second trot. It's a bit slow for the inside-the-park home run he probably thought he was getting, but incredibly fast for the normal variety of homer he actually hit. Brett Gardner was the next fastest trotter, coming in at 18.13 seconds.